not-so-pithy aphorisms, #243 - 249
People with hell in their hearts should make it a point to keep it there.It's unfair to make other people suffer for your personal unhappiness. Of course, the fact that it's unfair and irrational doesn't make it any less rare. I dare wager that more than half of all the suffering in this world is caused by walking Infernos who allow their bitterness and hatred to spill-over onto the people around them. And who often make their poor unwitting victims feel as if they are somehow to blame for something that is entirely not their fault.
That is why i am fully in favour of people wimping out of difficult situations if they do not have the strength to stick it out without using other people as emotional punching bags, or if they do not have what it takes to turn a bad situation to good. Because we have enough of hell in this world without people spreading more of it around. Perseverence is only as good as one's ability to find light in the darkness, or to be a light in the darkness. Anything else is tragic self-deception - a deluded attempt to convince oneself that what one is doing is admirably, or even heroically, stoic. Wisdom is knowing when to call it quits.
This applies to all aspects of life - in school, at work, in a marriage. In my not-so-humble opinion, the mindless assumption that perseverence and stoicism are universal virtues is in urgent need of revision. Perhaps these qualities wear well on saints and martyrs, but saints and martyrs fight on the side of heaven, not hell. The rest of us mere mortals should be given, and should take, the licence to be merely mortal, and to take the only-too-human option of removing ourselves from those things that cause us pain and suffering. Anything else is nothing but foolish vanity.
[Request to readers: Could someone do a logic check on this? i've this sneaking feeling that this post is fundamentally illogical, but can't quite put my finger on the reason.]
posted by eothen @ 8:08 PM
2 Comments:
So you're saying that people either (a) have enough strength or goodness in them to fight the bad stuff, or (b) will become not just conduits of the bad stuff but maybe even amplify it if they're not strong enough.
Therefore, if one knows that one is (a), then by all means carry on, but if one is (b), then it is better to run away from the bad stuff.
Being (a) means doing something about the bad stuff and making the situation better. Running away from (b) means at least you don't make the bad stuff any worse.
All this is fine.
The potential logical inconsistency you feel would probably stem from the assumption that (b) is true. Those who believe in stoicism and perseverance assume that as long as you're trying, even if you're not strong enough, you're helping to make things better. You assume that it is very possible (and even probable) that those not strong enough will make things worse rather than better.
Me, I believe that some things are beyond my power to save, so I let them go. Can try to fix first lah, but if really cannot then cannot lor.
yes, the flaw in your logic is the presence of the holier-than-thou spirit in your writing.
you assume that you are above hatred and bitterness and you have never ever spilled out any negativity of sorts?
sometimes all it takes is a simple low degree irritation from thou to achieve the effect of making this world a terrible place, as much as the walking infernos.
let's stop pretending that there is an us and them when it comes the suffering in the world.
sorry about my comments. i dislike observations like these passing off for logic.
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